Protest and Propaganda:
W. E. B. Du Bois, the CRISIS,
and American History
Apresentação do editor: «In looking back on his editorship of Crisis magazine,
W. E. B. Du Bois said, “We condensed more news about Negroes and their
problems in a month than most colored papers before this had published
in a year.” Since its founding by Du Bois in 1910, Crisis has
been the primary published voice of the NAACP. Born in an age of Jim
Crow racism, often strapped for funds, the magazine struggled and
endured, all the while providing a forum for people of color to document
their inherent dignity and proclaim their definitive worth as human
beings.
As the magazine’s editor from 1910 until 1934, Du Bois guided the content and the aim of Crisis with
a decisive hand. He ensured that each issue argued for civil rights,
economic justice, and social equality, always framing America’s
intractable color line in an international perspective. Du Bois
benefited from a deep pool of black literary and artistic genius,
whether by commissioning the visual creativity of Harlem Renaissance
artists for Crisis covers or by publishing poems and short
stories from New Negro writers. From North to South, from East to West,
and even reaching across the globe, Crisis circulated its ideas and marshaled its impact far and wide.
Building
on the solid foundation Du Bois laid, subsequent editors and
contributors covered issues vital to communities of color, such as
access to resources during the New Deal era, educational opportunities
related to the historic Brown decision, the realization of basic
civil rights at midcentury, American aid to Africa and Caribbean
nations, and the persistent economic inequalities of today’s global era.
Despite
its importance, little has been written about the historical and
cultural significance of this seminal magazine. By exploring how Crisis responded to critical issues, the essays in Protest and Propaganda
provide the first well-rounded, in-depth look at the magazine's role
and influence. The authors show how the essays, columns, and visuals
published in Crisis changed conversations, perceptions, and even
laws in the United States, thereby calling a fractured nation to more
fully live up to its democratic creed. They explain how the magazine
survived tremendous odds, document how the voices of justice rose above
the clamor of injustice, and demonstrate how relevant such literary,
journalistic, and artistic postures remain in a twenty-first-century
world still in crisis.»
sobre W.E.B. du Bois
ler aqui
Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois Joins Communist Party at 93
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